I believe I found you through other Substack writers. I think a previous article (Towards a Better Class Analysis) may have been linked or sent out through someone else. I loved that first article I read by you so much that I immediately decided to support your work and get a subscription. I am happy I did. I think the more re-tweeting is done by journalists supporting each other, the more people like me will get to know who we want to choose our new "news anchors" to be.
I've been thinking a lot about authenticity in America recently. I grew up in the US and other countries. I moved away from the USA ten years ago and haven't looked back. It is a very inauthentic place where authenticity is packaged and sold at a premium. Living overseas is a much more authentic experience because the locals don't know how to be any other way. I wonder if authenticity is making a come back in the US because of the trends in social media. It started with amateurs, then pros who faked big lifestyles, and seems to now be financially rewarding to authentic small creators. But I might be getting fooled. And this may just be an online trend where the outside culture is still as fake and packaged as ever. What is it like now?
I moved away from the US over 10 years ago so I'm not sure what it's like now. But I always noticed this weird disassociation many people had with their own places of origin. For some people, it was almost a sense of shame over being from somewhere boring, like it wasn't a real enough life. Social media fakery is a whole other level!!
Excellent article. Have just read it for a second time and found it deserves to be read multiple times. Not a subject I've seen a lot written about, but a very interesting one.
Enjoyed this article very much. Ditto JL's podcast on authenticity. Reading your article and thinking about the podcast reminded me of the strange experience of inauthenticity I had attending a rodeo last year in Madison Square Garden. The Americana seemed self-consciously pugnacious, and overtly politicized. A finger-in-the-eye to the blue states and the animal rights activists outside. Maybe I should have expected it, I mean what was I looking for, a family friendly down home spectacle in MSG? Spectators seemed to be performing the act of attendance in the Pomo-trad-nostalgia mode Lindsay also mentioned in his podcast. The bull riding and horsemanship though was spectacular. Still I came away with Baudrillard feels. The difference between the spectacle and the hyperreal super-spectacle. Between Merle Haggard and Brooks and Dunn. Between Church and MegaChurch, Barry Goldwater and Reagan, or Reagan and Trump.
Thank you Paul! Talking about authenticity in America in the decades after Baudrillard et al is such a mind fuck, isn't it? There are layers upon layers of ersatz performances and in each social class they have their set of peculiarities -- you could spend your life decoding and characterising them. Which would probably be a waste time, IMHO. But they do something unpleasant to your brain. I feel like they separate us from nature, somehow? But growing up around these inauthentic spectacles has kind of primed our consciousness for more sinister and aggressive messaging (the kind you have taken a stand against.) I'm noticing now how I can *physically* feel lies and manipulations that I read every day in the media. I think unless you go totally off the grid you just live a hall of mirrors and we each have to find a way to handle that. Thank you for reading!
...Great article, Jenny. I am going to be sure to have my husband and young teenage daughter also read this piece so that we can discuss at dinner table. So glad I found you through Substack
The Irish are a blessed race, one of my favorite characters is Steven the Irishman from Braveheart. In order to find his equal an Irishman is forced to talk to God.
I believe I found you through other Substack writers. I think a previous article (Towards a Better Class Analysis) may have been linked or sent out through someone else. I loved that first article I read by you so much that I immediately decided to support your work and get a subscription. I am happy I did. I think the more re-tweeting is done by journalists supporting each other, the more people like me will get to know who we want to choose our new "news anchors" to be.
I've been thinking a lot about authenticity in America recently. I grew up in the US and other countries. I moved away from the USA ten years ago and haven't looked back. It is a very inauthentic place where authenticity is packaged and sold at a premium. Living overseas is a much more authentic experience because the locals don't know how to be any other way. I wonder if authenticity is making a come back in the US because of the trends in social media. It started with amateurs, then pros who faked big lifestyles, and seems to now be financially rewarding to authentic small creators. But I might be getting fooled. And this may just be an online trend where the outside culture is still as fake and packaged as ever. What is it like now?
I moved away from the US over 10 years ago so I'm not sure what it's like now. But I always noticed this weird disassociation many people had with their own places of origin. For some people, it was almost a sense of shame over being from somewhere boring, like it wasn't a real enough life. Social media fakery is a whole other level!!
Excellent article. Have just read it for a second time and found it deserves to be read multiple times. Not a subject I've seen a lot written about, but a very interesting one.
Enjoyed this article very much. Ditto JL's podcast on authenticity. Reading your article and thinking about the podcast reminded me of the strange experience of inauthenticity I had attending a rodeo last year in Madison Square Garden. The Americana seemed self-consciously pugnacious, and overtly politicized. A finger-in-the-eye to the blue states and the animal rights activists outside. Maybe I should have expected it, I mean what was I looking for, a family friendly down home spectacle in MSG? Spectators seemed to be performing the act of attendance in the Pomo-trad-nostalgia mode Lindsay also mentioned in his podcast. The bull riding and horsemanship though was spectacular. Still I came away with Baudrillard feels. The difference between the spectacle and the hyperreal super-spectacle. Between Merle Haggard and Brooks and Dunn. Between Church and MegaChurch, Barry Goldwater and Reagan, or Reagan and Trump.
Thank you Paul! Talking about authenticity in America in the decades after Baudrillard et al is such a mind fuck, isn't it? There are layers upon layers of ersatz performances and in each social class they have their set of peculiarities -- you could spend your life decoding and characterising them. Which would probably be a waste time, IMHO. But they do something unpleasant to your brain. I feel like they separate us from nature, somehow? But growing up around these inauthentic spectacles has kind of primed our consciousness for more sinister and aggressive messaging (the kind you have taken a stand against.) I'm noticing now how I can *physically* feel lies and manipulations that I read every day in the media. I think unless you go totally off the grid you just live a hall of mirrors and we each have to find a way to handle that. Thank you for reading!
Are they fake penises or fake clitorises?
Fake penises -- for little girls who "think" they are boys and want boy genitals.
Revealing sociologically that they can hardly be distinguished from each other in this trendy (?) crocheted version.
...Great article, Jenny. I am going to be sure to have my husband and young teenage daughter also read this piece so that we can discuss at dinner table. So glad I found you through Substack
Thank you so much! I'm deeply flattered to hear that. Let me know how the conversation goes! Do you mind telling me how you found my page?
The Irish are a blessed race, one of my favorite characters is Steven the Irishman from Braveheart. In order to find his equal an Irishman is forced to talk to God.
Blessed in some ways, cursed in others! 🤣